December 30th - 6:59pm

Short day today with work finishing at lunch time. Probably a good thing too since it is hot, hot, hot outside right now. Hot inside too. But it was a pretty decent day to finish off the work week with. For the most part, non auction horses finished up their week yesterday so today was just hacking a few and then filming the ones for the auction.
I was on Puccini and Justinian to start the day off. Mostly just schooled transitions with Justinian. Up, down, up, down. Again worked to get Puccini really put together and round. Getting an idea of what the correct work is suppose to feel like which is making it easier to achieve. Knowing the words that make up a definition does very little for me if I dont know and understand what it is suppose to feel like. Ive known for years that horses have to push from behind to get any sort of contact up front. But until this last year, it was little more than words. Now Im feeling that a horse has to push and what it feels like when he really is. Not perfect at it by a longshot though. I still accidentally allow them to get behind me, ride front to back and make more mistakes than should be humanely possible but Im better than I was a year ago. Which, I am having to tell myself quite frequently right now. The last couple rides, particually jumping, I have come off frustrated with myself and my riding. Making the same mistakes over and over despite trying to fix them. Came into the exercise on Uxmal and after Nacar with no pace the first time. Bad distances, bad jumps, bad news. Came around a second time feeling like I had gotten them more forward, balanced and together. Same thing. Bad distances, bad jumps, bad news. Repeat until Martin gets on and fixes the problem. I feel like Im doing it correctly, I sure as anything want to do it correctly, and then epicly fail time and time again. Like yesterday with Boss, I should be able to do this. Its not rocket sience. Its not even like Ive never done it before. I do this job day in and day out on these horses. I know it, I know them and yet its not working. So incredibly frustrating.